New AWS exam for cloud security professionals

Given the seemingly endless demand for security-related skills, there’s good news from AWS in the shape of a new ‘AWS Certified Security – Specialty’ exam aimed at experienced cloud security professionals.

This new exam allows such professionals to demonstrate their knowledge of how to secure the AWS platform. In particular it covers incident response, logging and monitoring, infrastructure security, identity and access management and data protection.

It also validates the candidate’s ability to demonstrate the following:

An understanding of specialised data classifications and the AWS data protection mechanisms

An understanding of data encryption methods and the AWS mechanisms to implement them

An understanding of secure Internet protocols and the AWS mechanisms to implement them

A working knowledge of AWS security services and the features of these services to provide a secure production environment

An understanding of security operations and risk.

Importantly, given both budgetary and operational issues, it also covers the ability to make trade-off decisions with regard to cost, security, and deployment complexity given a specific set of application requirements.

The exam is open to anyone who currently holds a Cloud Practitioner or Associate-level certification. AWS also recommends that candidates have five years of IT security experience in designing and implementing security solutions, and at least two years of hands-on experience securing AWS workloads.

And, of course, it’s not just about ensuring that your security professionals are able to demonstrate a wider range of key skills. In such a competitive job market it’s also vital that you retain their services. Research from the CIPD indicates that the most popular step taken to improve staff retention is through increasing learning and development opportunities. So upskilling your staff through the ‘AWS Certified Security – Specialty’ exam should be a win-win for both parties!